2) France was overrun due to strategic error, not tactical cowardice. The Germans bypassed the Maginot Line, rendering all of France's defenses moot. The French then made a bargain with the devil to retain as much as they could. A similar event occurred in WWI, when the Germans flanked the French lines by going through Belgium. They still managed to fight off the Germans for years, and America wasn't even involved for the first several years in both conflicts, while French soldiers continued to die.

The French (actually, all Europeans) realize that war is not just a game played on someone else's shore. Real people with real families die. We may not count the Iraqis as human beings, but they damn sure do.